Alumnus Rafa Esparza and Artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby Join Hammer Museum's Artist Council

May 4, 2018

UCLA Arts alumnus Rafa Esparza's (B.A. '11) work often takes the form of physically exhaustive performances and installations constructed out of adobe bricks. The artist’s work considers the many forms of evolution within local and indigenous cultural production that have taken place alongside and adjacent to the narratives of Western art, including histories of sculptural installation and performance. Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a lecturer in the UCLA Department of Art, a 2017 a MacArthur Fellow, and presented a Hammer Projects exhibition at the museum in 2015.

"The Hammer Museum announced today that Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Rafa Esparza are the newest members of its Artist Council, a rotating advisory group of ten to fifteen Los Angeles-based artists that meets regularly with Hammer curators and leadership to discuss the museum’s program.

“The Artist Council is a crucial guiding voice within the Hammer Museum, and I’m delighted to see Njideka and Rafa join their ranks,” museum director Ann Philbin said. “We rely on the Artist Council to challenge and enhance the Hammer’s standing as an intellectual and cultural laboratory of ideas. Njideka and Rafa are valuable additions to this esteemed group.”

Esparza is a Los Angeles native born in 1981. He studied at East Los Angeles College before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received his BFA. He currently works in installation, sculpture, drawing, painting, performance, and other mediums and has exhibited at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2015); Bowtie Project, Los Angeles, with Clockshop (2015); Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA (2015); and Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles (2014). Esparza also recently participated in the Hammer Museum’s 2016 biennial exhibition Made in L.A. and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2017 biennial.

Other members of the Artist Council include alumna taisha paggett and UCLA Department of Art chair and professor Andrea Fraser."— ARTFORUM, May 3, 2018

This post is an excerpt, read the full article on the ARTFORUM website.

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